Merciless
by The Magic Pocket Turtle
Summary: Corvo was famous for sparing his enemies' lives when he put Emily on the throne. Some fates, however, are worse than death. [A short series of vignettes about the fates of Corvo's targets following Low-Chaos] CURRENT: ********
1. Part I: Campbell

**PART I: CAMPBELL**

* * *

Campbell hadn't known that the streets were so cold. He supposed it was to be expected- the winter months were closing in, and even the Abbey had begun to let in a chill. At least there, though, if the cold nipped too fiercely, he could bundle himself in blankets (Or whores, or both if he felt.)

He had been allowed nothing when he had been cast out, when he had been hurled begging and pleading into the streets by the very men he had once commanded. He couldn't help but touch the brand when he thought of it- he had cracked his head against the cobblestones when one of the men had kicked him away, and it had scraped the cauterized wound raw. He'd cleaned it as best as he could, with water from fetid puddles and gutters. He now worried that it would begin to fester.

He found himself missing even the floors of the Abbey. He swore to himself that even its marble was softer than the cobblestone he now called bed and home. For a brief while he'd found a place whose family had died of plague- He'd had to move their fly-infested bodies, but the mattress and still-functional stove had been to good to pass up. They were the only nights he slept at all, before the Dead Counters had chased him out and barricaded every entrance.

When he heard the pounding of the nails, he began to cry for the first time.

There was no help for him, but he still had his hope, and he swore that it was the greatest curse ever visited upon mankind. When he thought he'd given up, when his dignity and his pride could suffer no more abuse, he would be buoyed up by a sympathetic glance or a hesitant step. The results, however, never varied.

Every few hours he could hear the propaganda, reminding the world that aiding him was a criminal offense. He still tried. He begged, pleaded, making himself more and more pitiful as his pride sunk lower and the hole in his stomach grew wider. He begged for bread, for crusts, for crumbs, for anything to quell the hunger in his stomach. For a blanket, a sheet, anything to wrap himself in and fend off the cold just a little longer.

In the end, he'd been forced to eat the rats.


	2. Part II: Morgan

**PART II: MORGAN**

* * *

Morgan was in solitary again.

He liked to pretend that he'd gotten further this time, that he'd almost made it out. He liked to pretend he saw the sun. He'd ran maybe three feet less than last time, and the sun was merely a well-placed lantern. Morgan knew this, but he didn't like to admit it.

He and his brother had been buried alive. A thousand miles deep perhaps. They were deeper than when they started, that much was certain, and liable to be that much further down when he finally collapsed for good. Morgan didn't like to think about it. He didn't like to think about the weight of a mountain looming over his head, didn't like to think about the blind tunnels they dug in hopes of finding some untapped vein, that would fund... who, exactly?

Custis knew, of that he was certain, but he doubted his brother knew that _he _knew, that their younger sibling was dead. He knew, in that strange way that only twins knew, that his brother had pinned his hopes on Treavor's mercy, wherever he was. Morgan, however, had pinned the moment the hope flickered out of his brother's eyes to the front of his mind.

Custis may have been the smarter of the two of them, but that did not mean that Morgan was stupid. He sometimes saw his brother hesitate when swinging his pickaxe. He saw him glancing at the wooden braces that pressed the mountain above them. Custis would then glance at his brother, and return to work. Morgan had seen this many times, and he wondered how often it happened when he wasn't looking.

The escapes had been born of desperation, but had quickly become habit, a game to break up the monotony of the mines. He wondered what his brother thought of him, breaking rank, splitting skulls indiscriminately with his axe, charging madly as far as his under-nourished body would take him, until he was felled by a misplaced stone, or a well-fed slave master. It occurred to him, on some nights, when he idly prodded the stub in his mouth, that he would never have the chance to ask.


	3. Part III: Custis

**PART III: CUSTIS**

* * *

Morgan was in solitary again, and that meant Custis was alone.

His brother had not taken to their situation well- he'd fought and kicked even as they dragged him into this festering pit they called a mine. He'd swore and cursed until they'd cut the tongues from their mouths, and even then he continued howling, until the thugs threatened to slice his vocal chords. Custis had begged with gestures and whimpers for his brother to please, _please_, stop.

Morgan was like that. He refused to believe, even for a moment, that any path lay ahead of them but their imminent escape. In a way, this tore his twin in two- Custis couldn't bear the thought of seeing his brother "broken", as he heard the slave-masters say, but the hope and determination dug into him, because he'd already thrown it away.

There was no escaping the mines. They were generations deep, the blood and sweat of a thousand thousand Pandyssian slaves carving into the very guts of the world. The man who had never worked a day in his life now swung a pick or a sledgehammer for days on end. There was work, and there was sleep, and precious little of the latter.

Even less, now that their hair had started to grow back in. In kinder days, Custis would never have deigned to be seen by the slaves he'd ordered dragged from the continent, and so none of them knew the twins by sight. But they were prominent figures, and one or two of the slavemasters had recognized them weeks after they'd been sold. Custis couldn't be sure, and he couldn't prove it, but he guessed that one of them had divulged their identities to the other workers.

It had started when Custis woke to a sharp thudding on the side of his head. The lamps were unlit, but he could hear his brother grunting and struggling in the dark, and he could feel the rain of blows upon his face and sides. It was before he'd truly given up, so he'd fought back as best as he could. But when the lamps were lit and he was forced back to his feet, he found himself barely able to walk. He could feel a sharp pain in his left leg. He was still forced to work. The limp persisted long after the pain.

The brothers now slept in shifts- Custis still wasn't sure if that made their lives harder or easier. But he did know it made them marginally safer. But he had come to dread his brothers' escape attempts, because that always meant he was forced to sleep alone, if at all. During these days, he didn't even get the thin gruel that passed for food- the bowl was always intercepted.

For a brief while, he'd entertained the idea that Treavor- that scrawny, pitiful excuse for a nobleman, might save them. The thought was sickening, but it helped him rise when the lanterns lit. The day he overheard the slave masters discussing Havelock's treachery- and the poison Treavor had ingested- a crack opened up in his soul. The last thing he'd expected to do was cry over the death of the youngest Pendleton.

These mines had provided his family with more wealth and land than many saw in a lifetime. He now spent many of his waking hours praying that they would collapse.


	4. Part IV: Lady Boyle

**PART IV: LADY BOYLE**

* * *

The former Lady Boyle didn't know where she was, really- a look out the windows told her nothing. The cluttered and diseased streets of Dunwall were not what greeted her, but instead a tall and imposing stone wall, topped with what looked to be iron spikes. On his good days Brisby let her outside- carefully supervised, of course. The yard wasn't nearly as expansive as her own- she could pace to the iron gate from the front door in perhaps two minutes, if she were leisurely about it. Later, she would find that she could stretch that time to about five, by pausing frequently and making her steps slow and small. It was like a game for her. Step, pause, breathe, sigh, imagine, for a moment, that this was her house, and her lawn, and the man smoking the pipe behind her was her lover. Step. Pause. Breathe.

She didn't hear the announcements anymore. The odd quiet of her new world had taken some getting used to. No announcements, no reminders that the city watch was on patrol, that the plague was raging beyond her ivory tower. It made her nervous, the lack of immediate news, and she eagerly awaited the arrival of the paper.

Two weeks ago, it said that Campbell had been branded. A few days after that, that the Pendleton twins had gone missing, and Anton Sokolov behind them. The day after that, she herself had been whisked away to this place.

Brisby had explained the plan to her- she was no threat to the "Loyalists", locked up as she was, so there was no reason to keep it secret. But she hadn't needed the exposition. She'd known the instant that dark man had warned her of the danger to her life that Hiram was next. And the worst of it was the waiting.

The lies they told about her lover were sickening. Their claims that _he'd_ brought the plague upon them? That _he'd_ ordered the Empress killed? Tripe. Calumny. The worst kind of slander. She should know. The man who'd courted her quietly from the shadows, who'd left her clumsy but well-meaning poetry in the strangest of places, who'd _listened _to her, long before she had the money and power to help him, would never. _Could _never. She would defend him to her dying breath and no one, not Brisby or the papers or the Late Empress herself could _ever _convince her that Hiram Burrows was a traitor. He was loyal to the crown, and he was loyal to _her_.

But being loyal to Hiram was becoming more and more difficult. So far, Brisby had "accepted" her rejection. Not that he hadn't stopped trying, or making condescending comments about how she'd come around sooner or later. He'd been merely disappointed the first time she refused him. Lately he'd taken to drinking and sullen glares. He refused to speak to her some days.

Two mornings ago, however, she'd awoken to find her bedroom door unlocked. She _always _locked it at night- she always checked four times (like Hiram had taught her), and when the doorknob turned effortlessly in her hand, it was all she could do to keep from crying.

Before, she had blamed the nausea on the stress. Now, she had begun to suspect otherwise. She'd taken to measuring her waist in the morning, before going out to face Brisby's "affections". There hadn't been any noticeable changes yet, but that didn't mean anything.

What if she were right? She could barely manage the thought, but if (when) Hiram was executed, then what if this were all she'd have left to remember him by?

_What if Brisby found out?_

She decided she had three options: She could continue refusing Brisby's advances, for however long he'd allow her to do so. She could accept them, and make the best of the situation. Or she could walk herself up to the balcony on the third floor, and jump.


	5. Part V: Hiram

**PART V: HIRAM**

* * *

It appeared the new Lord Regent was not going to make the same mistake that he had. There would be no six months of waiting and torture. There was no need to get him to sign a confession when he had practically announced it to all of Gristol. There was no trial, no judge, only the executioner. Hiram Burrows would lose his head tonight.

He'd accepted that. He deserved it, after all, for all his good intentions, for all his plans. For the death of an empress, for the death of a nation (Surely, if he could not stem the plague, no foolish, short-planned ex-Admiral, let alone an undisciplined, spoiled child could do much better.). For his lack of perfection. It occurred to him, as he flexed his hands and tried to rub the warmth back into his stiff digits, that his failure was not so much that people didn't follow orders, than that he didn't try hard enough to make them.

For example: the guard patrol. It was uneven. Sloppy. They marched past his cell in odd intervals. Ten minutes, twelve minutes, five, twenty, _three whole hours_ once. It was disorderly. He didn't like it.

His food was irregular as well, but he had a theory behind that. His cell was isolated from the other prisoners (There was a bit of praise for the Admiral- perhaps if he'd kept Corvo buried in the dungeons, hadn't had him moved to the executioner's block, none of this would have happened.). It wouldn't have surprised him to find that the guards had simply forgotten he was there (or were actively trying to starve him.)

What did it matter, anyway? What was one missed meal to a dying man?

Hiram found himself watching the small corner of the sky he could make out from his cell. The sun was bright. There were no clouds. It wasn't much of a view, to be fair, but it was something. He watched the sun rise. And he watched the sun set.

The problem was when the sun rose again.

He rubbed the base of his neck- had his execution been postponed? Perhaps he'd had the date wrong (Strange, he felt he was usually more meticulous than that.). He resolved to ask the guard when they came by again.

The guard never came, and Hiram watched the sun set with his neck rooted firmly to his shoulders.

Hiram felt something nagging at the back of his brain as the sky lightened again. Today, perhaps? (Was he really off by two days?) As the sky grew dark, he felt a tightness in his chest.

He took to pacing. Back and forth, door to wall. Check the window, check the hall. Deep breaths, repeat again. Back and forth. Door to wall. It wasn't until his throat was far too dry for the task that it occurred to him to call for help.

His stomach twisted from something darker than hunger- had he anything in there to vomit, he might have done so. He found himself having to remember to breath. His hands were raw from wringing. Where were they? Where were the guards? Where was the executioner? Where was anybody, for that matter? It was a fortune he was already bald, else he might've plucked every hair individually.

Within a few days, he could not bring himself to pace. He dragged the ratty excuse for a blanket over to the door and huddled there, one hand out the food slot in hopes that someone might pass through and see it. Someone might pass through and remember he was there.

With a bitter sort of resignment, Hiram began to look forward to his execution.

* * *

_**Author's Note:** I like to think that once Havelock and co. realized that Corvo was a bit more alive than previously believed, there was a bit of chaos following as they dropped everything to break for Kingsparrow Island. There wasn't really a good way to show that here, so I thought an explanation might be in order. _


	6. Part VI: Havelock

**PART VI: HAVELOCK**

* * *

He was never going to see the sea again.

The thought occurred to him after his third day bowed over the dungeon stones (Hadn't Martin made a joke about this once? It seemed less funny now.). He'd passed out in the Lighthouse, and re-awakened in the stocks of Coldridge prison- from Regent to convict in less time than it took to enjoy the view.

He could smell the salt from his cell- Coldridge was on top of the ocean after all. Rather than comfort him, it wore a groove in his chest, a spiritual hole of sorts, a constant reminder of what was only a few feet of stone away. It hurt.

It was worse when the wind blew the other direction- there were days when all he could smell were the stink of himself and the cell, and it became painfully clear how fair he had fallen in the world.

Havelock wasn't sure if he should be humbled or bitter- it alternated, it seemed. Some days he thought about what the crown owed him- surely better than the stocks, seeing as he had all but placed the young Empress on the throne himself. Some days he thought about what he owed Corvo- surely better than poison and a legacy forcefully dragged through the mud. Days like that made the shame well so deeply that he felt almost nauseous. He'd rather keep his bitterness.

It was getting harder though. The stocks game him time to think- a leisure he didn't usually partake in. He hadn't made rank through carefully laid plans, but through those split seconds of decision, the brash and reckless sort of choices that sailed or sank a ship. And a little luck. Maybe a lot of luck.

He didn't receive many visitors. The guards who swapped in and out didn't count. Maybe the one who came twice a day to feed him like an infant did. In fact, Havelock had only received one visitor, the day he'd regained consciousness to find his wrists on level with his ears and his back forced into an uncomfortable hunch.

"Good morning, Admiral." Havelock snorted at that. "I thought you'd like to know that Emily has made it to the throne."

"Good." he muttered. "At least one of us did."

"I don't think she intends to kill you, Havelock. You'll live. For however long you're meant to." Corvo came closer and knelt by Havelock's face. Even in a position like this, Havelock wasn't a man to be cowed- he met the would-be assassin's gaze. He was a hard man to read, even without the mask. In the dim light Havelock could barely make out the man's expression.

"I picked your cell out for you. It's close to the sea- close enough anyway. I hope you'll enjoy it."

What do you say to a man who speaks even pleasantries like a threat? It occurred to Havelock that Corvo's abstinence from murder was no indication of his abstinence from revenge. There was a satisfied sort of spite in the man's eyes. Havelock wondered if Corvo had petitioned for his life, or if it was Emily's idea to begin with.

Corvo hadn't stayed long after that. His debriefing of the situation, of the fruit of both their labors, hadn't needed much more elaboration, and the Lord Protector had other things to do than chat with a former Admiral in his little cell by the sea.

If the day were still enough he could hear the sound of the waves. Most days he couldn't though. The window was high and small- there was no way for him to see the water. The ground beneath his stiff and sore knees was painfully still. The smell of salt, it seemed, was all he had left. It hung in the air like a taunt.

A poetic man might say Havelock carried much of the sea in his heart, and that it came out through the eyes. But Havelock was not a poetic man.

* * *

_**Author's Note:** I'd like to thank you all for your reviews and your readership, I truly appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed the stories as much as I enjoyed writing them._

_**Edit:** I intentionally skipped Daud, as I feel as though he was the only one who received real "mercy" from Corvo. He's allowed to choose his life's path, instead of Corvo forcing his fate upon him. I felt Daud wouldn't have meshed well with the theme of this story._


End file.
